Mendocino, CA, Feb 13th, 2010

Having packed our luggage the night before, while watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Games, we were on the road at 8:55am, driving up the east side of the bay under heavily clouded skies. I was excited to cross the San Rafael Bridge, which was the only bridge in the bay area I hadn't traveled on during my stint as a Bay Area kid fascinated by bridges. Unfortunately it was completely fogged over, so we had no views of SF, or the Golden Gate bridge. At Santa Rosa we decided to drive to the coast for the scenic drive up Route 1. The weather forecast was supposed to be partly cloudy, the best day out of the 3 day weekend, so we hoped the fog would burn off by the time we arrived at the coast. Fortunately, we had some open, though hazy views of the shoreline when we arrived.

When we crossed the foothills and reached the coast, the view was excellent...

It was very hazy, but with Lightroom software, I could cut through some of the fogginess...

Some cool zoom shots...

The drive up Route 1 was pretty. Wendy was on camera duty, taking pics from the car. We stopped every so often at scenic lookouts.

More Lightroom work to cut through the haze. Wendy took the 1st pic from the car, came out great. 2nd pic is from a lookout...

Some entertaining yard decorations as we passed through a town up the coast...

A couple pics just before reaching Mendocino...

We arrived at the Mendocino Farmhouse at 1:45pm, located 2 miles from the coast in a small clearing in the forest. Having checked in, we drove to Mendocino and walked around town. We called some restaurants to find a dinner reservation (busy Valentine's weekend). Cell phone service was weak, and we resorted to my Verizon coverage more times than not. Wendy got a burger and Mendo's Burgers (Wendo had a Mendo Burger).

Wendy enjoyed photographing this dog...

She also found some flowers on the patio to photograph...

We walked to the edge of town and ate our food (burger and fruit), then walked out along some semi-muddy trails through the grassy park, to the ocean front.

After a snack we walked out across the grassy headland...

And found a sinkhole that connected to the ocean. The surf periodically flowed in, creating some big splashes...

We took a different trail back that led to Main street, and walked along the shops and galleries, exploring the hippy town.

I found a recovery heart to fill up my health meter. One house had a lot of yard decorations...

The shops and courtyards in town were quaint and pretty...

Sunset was at 5:50pm, and our dinner reservation was at 7:15pm, so we wandered around town and found another, more secluded area over the shoreline. We hung out there til sunset.

Wendy (the tiny person) walks out to a scenic lookout point...

We hung out here for ~30 minutes, watching the active surf collide against rocks...

It was a bit chilly, but not windy in this spot. The surf was forecast to be extremely high this weekend, which was a treat to watch...

Wendy takes some pics with the zoom lens (and I use my good ol' pocket cam)...

These rubbery flowers were the subject of Wendy's attention in the photo above...

More high surf shots...

Despite the heavy cloud, the sky turned orange just above the horizen...

Just before sunset, several other people showed up, and we had our pic taken...

We left soon after sunset. A look back a other people arriving at the lookout...

We drove back to the B&B to dress up for dinner at the Westford Inn restaurant. It was cloudy out, with no moon, and the darkness seemed to snuff out the cars headlights before they could reach 15 yards ahead. The drive was slow, south along the coast, but we eventually found the isolated restaurant. I had the "Bistro special" - a gorganzola, pecan, salad, followed by rabbit stew (which tasted almost the same as mom's chicken stew), and king's cake for dessert. Wendy ordered a beet and spinach salad, and the duck entre. A fine dinner.